In printers including an ink jet printer, dot printing data for forming a plurality of ink dots constituting a printed image is generally generated by means of, for example, quantizing 8-bit image data to individual binary image data of 1-bit. As one of methods for this type of quantization, a dither processing is known. The use of the methods disclosed in Patent Documents 1 and 2 provides patterns, in which thresholds are well dispersed. When using such patterns for quantization, the binary image data with less noise feeling and high dispersiveness can be obtained. The dithering method, which can process data at a higher speed than that of an error diffusion method, is suitable for processing data for high-speed printers, requiring high-speed performance, and multi-color printers, requiring processing a lot of data.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent No. 2622429
Patent Document 2: U.S. Pat. No. 5,5350,200 Specification